


No Lightsabers in the Cockpit, Please

by Chordae



Series: Din Djarin’s Guide To Fatherhood and All the Existential Crises Inbetween [6]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Accidental Lightsaber Acquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22080862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chordae/pseuds/Chordae
Summary: The kid messes with it for a moment, tiny claws pressing into every groove and tracing every blemish, until apparently he finds a button and pushes it- and suddenly there’s a laser piercing right through the cockpit’s ceiling and Din doesn’t even try to stifle his scream.
Series: Din Djarin’s Guide To Fatherhood and All the Existential Crises Inbetween [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586989
Comments: 13
Kudos: 309





	No Lightsabers in the Cockpit, Please

It was supposed to be a simple bounty.

It  _ was  _ a simple bounty.

(Din has the lingering suspicion that most of the situations he gets himself in start like this, and maybe he should just stop taking the easy bounties at this point.)

The bounty had been to retrieve a smuggler who had stolen a few things too many, thus leading to the point that they’re now frozen in carbonite aboard the _Razor Crest_. They also _just_ _so_ _happened_ to have a bag of peculiar trinkets on them.

Din lugs the bag into the cockpit, an amass of stolen odds-and-ends clinking about inside as it slumps to the ground. The kid trails behind him, curiously toddling into the cockpit, making an inquisitive noise.

“Da?” He asks, his grubby little claws digging at the rucksack. Din immediately swoops down, grabbing the kid and depositing him a measurable distance away from the contraband.

“ _ No _ ,  _ ad’ika.” _ Din carefully enunciates, voice dragging on the ‘no’. He keeps his hands on his kid’s shoulders to try to communicate his request that the kid  _ stay there _ . His kid just pushes against him, determinedly barreling towards the bag. “ _ No.”  _ Din stresses, exasperated. He takes a seat next to the bag and keeps his kid away with an extended arm. His kid squabbles for a moment, grunting as he tries to walk past his arm, then finally gives in, plopping onto the ground with a sigh and crossing his stubby arms over his chest. 

He diverts his attention away from the bag and shoots a nasty glare towards his father, which isn’t communicated very well, his wide-eyed demeanor making it look less like a menacing glare and more like a sad, dog-eyed expression.

Din looks at his kid then shakes his head, a world-weary sigh escaping him.

“Don’t look at me like that.” He all but begs. 

The kid pointedly turns his face away from Din.

“What-“ Din bites out, then calms himself. “You could get  _ hurt  _ if you go digging around in that.” He strictly informs him, pointing at the bag.

His kid’s ears flatten against his head at being reprimanded, his glare fading to a saddened gaze.

Din sighs for what seems to be the fiftieth time, then frantically tries to usher his kid away.

“Look, can you just, I don’t know, go play with something that isn’t detrimental to your health?” He requests, a hysterical edge to his voice, because four out of five times his kid will blatantly choose to play with life-threatening things as opposed to the nice, _safe_ toys Din has bought him.

_That_ _isn’t_ _normal_ , he assumes. _Not_ _all_ _children **have**_ _to_ _be_ _actively_ _seeking_ **_death_**.

The kid gives him another wide-eyed look, then pointedly looks at the bag. Then at Din again… then at the bag.

Din can feel a migraine forming, and just pats the ground next to him. 

“You can watch,  _ but no touching.” _

The kid squeals then happily plops onto the floor next to him, practically vibrating with excitement as he keeps his eyes trained on the bag.

Din can’t help the small smile in response to his kid’s glee, and awkwardly pats the kid’s head a few times, getting a happy squeal in response.

Din begins to inspect their plunder- a scattering of credits, spare parts to a machine of some sort, a few useless blasters, and-

_ Oh. _

He pushes the pile of useless stolen goods to the side, then carefully digs out the strange device out of the rucksack.

He runs his fingers over it for a moment, taking in the rather intricate design that wouldn’t seem out of place on a weapon-handle. His kid leans in to get a better look at it, teething on a credit as he does so. 

_ Maybe it’s a sword handle?  _ He thinks.  _ Or at least some broken part of a weapon. _ Thinking nothing of it, he puts it aside.

He continues to do his digging through the bag, finding nothing of use -  _ Who gets a bounty put on them for a bunch of useless junk?-,  _ but suddenly stops his searching as he hears a soft coo from beside him.

He turns around to find his kid with the same broken-weapon piece from before, looking at it if it was some fine art piece. 

The kid messes with it for a moment, tiny claws pressing into every groove and tracing every blemish, until apparently he finds a button and pushes it- and suddenly there’s a laser piercing right through the cockpit’s ceiling and Din doesn’t even try to stifle his scream.

The kid screams as well, an initial delighted squeal that quickly devolves into a frightened shriek. Din swoops down and quickly grabs the thing out of the kid’s grip, staggering to stand up and fumbling around with the device as he searches for a way to turn it off.

He frantically pushes the button once he finds it, and with a noise not unlike the sound of a leaking air-tank, the restrained laser is gone. The cabin’s quiet, save for Din’s panicked breaths and the kid’s quiet cries- and that’s what really sets Din off.

The kid’s only cried a few times since Din’s been unwillingly subjected to fatherhood, and they were all times he’d much rather forget.

The kid’s cries as the Imperial remnant shuffles him off back into their labs, Din turning his back on him and accepting the ‘reward’ for the bounty-

Din drops the device back on top of the rucksack, and collapses in front of the kid, his wide-eyes obscured by the build up of tears and his tiny green face pinched as he cries.

“Hey,” Din tries to soothe, arms unsuredly wrapping around him. “Hey,  _ ad’ika,  _ it’s okay.” He attempts again, the kid pressing himself against his chest and balling his fists in his cloak, his sniffles muffled against him.

Din realizes that,  _ oh,  _ he could’ve lost his kid in that moment, just because he turned his back for a moment and failed to identify whatever his kid was playing with- and there’s another realization, as he glances back to the abandoned device, hysterically realizing that it was a  _ lightsaber,  _ the same kind of thing that weird magic-people pranced about and  _ killed people with. _

He can’t blame himself, he’s never  _ seen _ an actual lightsaber- he didn’t know they came all compact like that- but he can’t help the lingering guilt at the fact that he just unknowingly endangered his kid. The guilt of his naivety is crushing and terrifying, and Din easily decides that from here on out the kid is not to mess with  _ anything  _ before Din messes around with it himself and determines that it won’t kill  _ either _ of them, even if through trial and error or by other means.

Din drags in a deep breath, hitches the quietly sniffling kid onto his hip, and grabs the lightsaber.

Without fanfare, he exits the  _ Razor Crest _ then chucks the lightsaber as far as he can, turning his back and re-entering his ship before he can watch it hit the ground.

He shuffles himself and the kid back into their quarters and carefully sits him onto the mattress. Din kneels before him, eye-level to those red-rimmed, wide-eyes, and gingerly takes the clawed hands into his own.

“I’m sorry.” He apologizes. “I should’ve known better and I swear- I  _ swear  _ I’ll be more careful from here on out, okay?”

The kid’s quiet for a moment, then happily warbles out something that Din hopes is acknowledgement, and that’s that.

**Author's Note:**

> woah I accidentally made that sadder than it was meant to be.  
> I swear I keep trying to write crack-fic but they end up kind of angsty sorry  
> haha also that ending was kind of like TROS so whoops


End file.
